When All Else Fails
by withloveme
Summary: Wally and Artemis West are brother and sister their parents are Sportsmaster and Huntress also known as Paula West and Lawrence Crock (never married).But what happens when Artemis is kidnapped on her 5th birthday?What will Wally do to save her? Romance Artemis and Robin. Artemis is 14 as is Robin in the presnt and Wally is 18-19 in the present (messing with the time stream).
1. Chapter 1

When All Else Fails

(I do not own Young Justice)

**Chapter One; Tomorrow**

(9 years earlier)

**Wally's P.O.V **

'What the Hell?**'** I think. I have this nagging feeling that something is off. There's no reason not to feel off about today. Or any day for that matter. Well for one; Artemis and I are living alone now. And second; today is Artemis' 5th birthday. My birthday was 5 months ago where I turned 9. That was the last birthday I had with our parents before I took Artemis and ran away the day after my birthday. No way in Hell was I going to give up Artemis to the life of crime that our parents want for us. I remember the moment I snapped and finally decided that I would take Artemis with me when I ran away from the life of crime.

_Flashback_

"Artemis! Get in here now!" Dad yelled.

"Coming Daddy!" Artemis said, unknowingly to what she's about to do.

"Dad, come on, I really don't need to take Artemis with me, I mean, she's only 4." I tried to reason with him not to let Artemis come with me to "get our money from the bank", but to no avail. Once he had his mind set, there's nothing you can do to change how he feels.

"It doesn't matter if she is 4 or 14, you are going to need a distraction, and she has her training, she will be fine. No more words will be wasted on this matter. She is going with you." He said.

"Yes, Dad." I sigh; this is not how I want to spend the last few minutes of my birthday.

Just then, as if on cue, Artemis came in the room in her pink pajamas and slippers, with a stuffed white rabbit in her hand. "Yes Daddy?" She asked tiredly.

"You are to go with your brother and get our money from the bank," He says this like it's our money, which it's not, but he is saying it like it is, trying to get it into Artemis' mind that what we are doing will be for the good of everyone. "I need you to distract people and get them to look at you. Okay? Do whatever you need to do to get the job done." He gave her a long stare and then sent us to the bank to get "our" money.

We were almost at the bank when I turned to her, dropped to my knees, so I was at her height. She clutched the white rabbit to her chest with one arm while holding my hand in hers. I could see in her eyes that she didn't want this, that she knew that this was wrong even though Dad said differently.

"Do you want too get away from everything? Live on our own, be normal, be who you want to be? Artemis, do you want to run away?" I asked her somehow knowing that she would understand what I mean.

"But what about Mommy?" She asked me, she asked about Mom and not Dad, so she _does _understand what I mean.

"We can visit her when Daddy's not home, and then get our stuff while were there." I say, I know that Mom and Dad are having some _problems_, with their _relationship_ at the moment and I know that Mom would want us out of the crime life and have a normal one instead.

She smiles when I say that we can visit, "Then, can we go now I'm cold," She agrees, but I can't argue with her, it is pretty cold, and she doesn't even have a jacket, just a pair of old, worn down pajamas, which aren't meant to block out the cold.

"Sure, let's go find somewhere to stay." I say, and I pick her up and bring her close to my chest, while she raps her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist.

It doesn't take long to get to the rundown apartment in the slums of Gotham City, not to far from where our parents live, so that way we always have a way to get food and money, when we need it. I have had this apartment ready fro over 2 months, because, you never know when you're going to need another place to go to when things get rough.

I lay a sleeping Artemis down on an old tattered mattress and curl up next to her.

_End of Flashback_

It hasn't been that long that we've been on our own just a few months, and we have visited Mom when Dad isn't around, she says that Dad is looking for us and isn't going to stop until he finds us. This worries me; he always gets what he wants, never giving up. Mom also says that he thinks I'm a lost cause and that he wants to turn Artemis into a weapon, while she is still young so I don't get the _goodness _of the world in her system and _mess her up_.

Mom is very worried about us, even though she doesn't say it to my face; I can see it in her eyes, the pain that she's hiding. She always tells me that I could always go to her brother Barry West, The Flash. But she knows that I hate the superheroes, she doesn't know why, but she knows that I hate them. She always says "If things ever get to tough, never come here, your father will hurt you, call this number," she puts a folded up piece of paper in my hand, I don't look at it, I just shove it in my pocket in the front of my jeans. "And Barry will help you out."

I never looked at the phone number in a cabinet in the kitchen, behind the plates so Artemis won't find it.

The apartment isn't that big, only 4 rooms; 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, and a kitchen/living room/dining room.

I start walking to Artemis' room to say 'Happy Birthday' to her, but just as I make it to the door way of my room, I hear a crash coming from her room.

'Oh, shit' I think.

And start to make my way to Artemis' room, on my way I grab a knife from the kitchen and continue on my way to her room.

When I make it to Artemis' room I find it trashed, clothes on the floor, bed sheets along with them, but in the naked bed I find a small slip of paper.

_'Found You'_


	2. Chapter 2

When All Else Fails

(I do not own Young Justice)

**Chapter One; Today**

(9 years later)

**Wally's P.O.V **

I still remember that day, 9 years ago, like it was yesterday. Well, it is exactly 9 years ago that it happened; today is Artemis' 14th birthday, the same age as The Boy Wonder.

That was the first time in my life I really broke down and let my true feelings out. At that time, I understood what 9 year olds didn't even know about yet, shouldn't know about yet.

I remember in my broken-down state I finally called Uncle Barry, he was kind enough, always cracking jokes, always smiling, someone who I couldn't see my 9 year old self hanging out with.

When I called Uncle Barry 9 years ago, he made my leave the apartment and move in with him. But every time Uncle Barry was busy being The Flash, and doing hero things, I would go over to the apartment and just sit in Artemis' room and talk to her, like she was actually there, she wasn't though, obviously. If she were I-we wouldn't be in the mess that we are now.

"Team, report to the mission room. Now." Batman demands.

_'Man, even Batman sounds on edge.' _ I think.

By the time I get to the mission room, everyone is already there, as always, late again.

"We have the right to believe that Sportsmaster and Huntress are trying to find this girl," he says this while pulling up a picture of a girl around Robin's age, with long blonde hair, she looks oddly familiar, but I cant place her at the moment. "She is very confused, very well trained in every from of combat, but if she is found by the Shadows, they will turn her into a weapon. She is with the Joker now, but possibility won't stay for long, so you must get going, now. She is not to be harmed, and is to stay at the cave under surveillance." He says.

"So what's her name?" Robin asks.

"Artemis West." Batman replied.

My eyes go wide, and the full impacted of what Batman said hits me like a ton-of-bricks.

Artemis West.

My sister.

In danger.

The Shadows want her.

Their not going to get her.

My sister.

Artemis West.

"Wally, what is that?" I am brought back to the real world by M'gann's voice. Then I realized that I subconsciously pulled out the necklace from my uniform and was looking at it with intensity. It wasn't a fancy necklace; it had a small charm which was of a small bow and arrow. It may not have been anything special, but it did have a meaning behind it. It was the present that I was going to give Artemis for her 5th birthday. But, no, that plan didn't work out because she was kidnapped on that exact day.

I haven't really told them about Artemis, but I'm sure that Robin knows, he_ is_ The Boy Wonder. They do know about my parents though, but that's not the point, the point is; is that they know nothing about Artemis, expect what they just learned about her from Batman just now. So I decide that I'm going to take a chance and tell them about Artemis. So I go on to explain everything from the mission at the bank, to her birthday, and tell them that the necklace is hers and today is her 14th birthday.

By the end of my story, M'gann is almost in tears, and the rest of the Team is shocked, sans Robin, probably because he already knew.

I look up at the clock and realize that we've all been standing there talking or in silence for over 10 minutes.

"Guys, we need to go, like, now, if we want to catch the Joker and get Artemis."

It took me a minute to come to the conclusion that those words were not from my mouth, but from Robin's.

Without another word we left to the hanger where the Bio-Ship was waiting for our arrival.


	3. Chapter 3

When All Else Fails

(I do not own Young Justice)

**Chapter Two; Next**

(_'Mind-Link.' Thoughts._)

**Wally's P.O.V **

Everyone was quiet on the way to Joker's lair, but not me. I couldn't stop talking, how could I? I just found out that my sister is still alive, in danger, but still alive. I've never _really _ stopped looking for her. Just sometimes, I would get really mad at my self for losing her and not being able to find her. Some nights I would run all the way back to Gotham and look for her, because now that Uncle Barry has taken me _under his wing _I have been living in Central City. Sometimes the anger that I felt at myself got so bad that Uncle Barry actually had to lock me in a room to get me to calm down. He started talking to me like I was a charity case and kept saying over and over again was that I could come to him for anything, and not to worry, and that I'm completely _safe._

20 minutes later I heard the familiar hum in my mind that let me know that the mind-link is up, and we're approaching the destination, one step closer to Artemis.

_'Everyone linked?' _asked M'gann.

An echo of _'Yes'_'s came from the Team's mind.

5 minutes later we landed the Bio-Ship near an old-rundown fair, which is ironic because, you know, he's the Joker.

Aqualad, being the leader, paired us up. I was with Superboy, M'gann was with Robin, and Aqualad was on his own.

Superboy and I were walking around the fair for about 5 minutes, when he put his arm to stop me. When I stopped he said;

"I hear 2 other heart beats, that aren't the Teams."

"1 of them has to be Artemis." I almost yell, but then remember where we are, and stop myself.

As we near the heart beats, Superboy stops again and listens, after a moment his eyes go wide, "Something's hear."

We get into fighting positions, when there was a rustling of leaves in a near by bush, all of a sudden the rustling stops, and something jumps out of the bush.

Superboy sighed, "It was just a damn cat." He said.

Then not a second later he was back in a fighting stance.

"Superboy, what the hell man? It's just God damn cat, there's no one else here, for Christ sake!" I knew I wasn't being fair; he was the one with super hearing.

He had his jaw set and trying to listen to something that I couldn't hear.

I was starting to get impatient, so before I could yell at him aging for something that was out of his control, I threw a rock at a tree that was close yet far enough for throwing at.

But the next thing I know there is a sharp pain on my forehead, I growled at the pain it had caused and rub my right hand over the small bump on my forehead. I look around to see what had hit me, when my eyes land on the very same rock that I had just thrown at the tree, "Superboy," I say, somewhat nervously. "I think that you were right; there is something-someone else here."

He gives me an _I told you so _look, but still nods still trying to locate the heart beat.

There's another movement from the tree I threw the rock at, and I could just see a figure of a girl; a little shorter than Robin, wearing what looked like shorts and a sports bra with no shoes, but what stood out most was her long mane of golden blonde hair. As she came closer I could see that she had burn marks up and down her arm, along with cuts and crapes all over her body, I could also see that she had some Vietnamese like attributes to her face, my first thoughts go to Artemis. _Is this really what she look's like? After 9 years and I get to see her again, why does she have burns and cuts like that? What is she wearing? _

When I get my act together, I mentally call out to the Team, _'Guys? Me and Superboy have found Artemis, come to our location now, hurry, she looks pretty beat up.' _

_'On our way,' _called out Robin.

_'As am I' _replied Aqualad.

For a minute she just stands there, looking us over, studying us, like she was trying to commit it to memory. I take a chance and try to talk to her, "We won't hurt you, you don't have to be afraid." I say, but I probably shouldn't, because when I said that she notched an arrow and pointed it at my heart, I held up my hands in defense, and trying again. "Artemis, we won't hurt you, we're the good guys, I'm Kid Flash," I point to myself, "and this is Superboy." I point to him.

She hesitates for a second, and then very slowly comes fully out of the shadows, arrow still pointing at my heart, not fully trusting. By that time the rest of the Team has come to us, but she still has her arrow trained on me.

"Seen Kid Flash on the news," she starts to say, "he doesn't were black."

It takes me a moment to full understand what she says, and then I realize that I have my uniform on stealth.

But before I can say anything in return Aqualad speaks up, "We are not going to harm you, please come with us we will keep you safe," he says, all I do is nod, not knowing what to say.

"How do I know your not lying?" she asks. Still not trusting, not that she would, Batman said that she is very confused.

"Please," says Robin. "We will not hurt you, you have to trust us, we will keep you safe." He starts to walk forward, and extend a hand to her, which is another bad idea because now she takes her arrow off me and aimed it at Robin, who stayed frozen.

When Superboy spoke up, "Someone else is here."

"And right you are Little Super." Comes a voice from the shadows near Artemis.

The Joker.


	4. Chapter 4

When All Else Fails

(I do not own Young Justice)

**Chapter Three; Home**

(_'Mind-Link.' Thoughts._)

**Dick's P.O.V**

I reach my hand out to Artemis, and who shows up when I meet the most beautiful girl I've ever seen?

The God damn Joker, always ruining moments.

"Now, now, my little sidekicks, I didn't come for a fight, as much as I would enjoy one, but, sadly, no, I only came to get what belongs to friends of mine." He as this creepy smile on his face, which makes me nervous about his next move.

Artemis turns away from us to face the Joker, but still keeping us in her line of sight. She doesn't say anything as she points her arrow at the Jokers head. She's just about to release the arrow when a knife comes her way, I gasp, still frozen on the spot, but she sees it coming and redirects her arrow to the knife, and when it hits its target, the knife is forced to the ground by the arrow gong through the blade. Everyone on the Team could only gape in shock of what Artemis just did. But she doesn't even flinch at what happened, she only notches another arrow ready to release at a seconds notice.

And she does a minute later when on one moves to attack, she lets the arrow fly at the Joker, which he doges, but she already expected this and angled the arrow so that it would hit the Jokers costume and pins him to a tree.

"My little Archer, always expect the unexpected child." He says. This makes her confused and tilts her head to the side just a little, like it would help her think. Then next attack happens in a blur, a knife is thrown at Artemis, but again she pins it to the ground, and notches another.

Before the Joker could throw another knife at Artemis, I intervene. With my still extended hand I take the few steps forward to her and grasp hold of her upper left arm. This probably isn't the best idea since she has an arrow notched.

She spins around fast to meet my masked glare, and a flicker of confusion comes over her eyes and she pauses for a moment to look at me, I take advantage of her distraction and signal the Team mentally, and tell them to apprehend the Joker while I take Artemis. I notice that Kid Flash is hesitant about going with the rest of the Team, I understand why.

He has just found his sister that has been missing for 9 years. It's understandable. But, he does, after he sends me a mental message; _'Take care of her, make sure she is not harmed, and get her to come back with us. But don't tell her that I'm her brother, I want to do that.' _Along with a mental stern look. I nod mentally and he goes with the rest of the Team, leaving me with Artemis.

"Artemis-" I start, but she cuts me off.

"How do you know my name?" she asks.

I remove my hand from her shoulder and look at her threw my mask. I start to explain who we are and what we do, and how we want to help her. She doesn't interrupt, only when she thinks I haven't explained everything that she needs to know. But when she does, she gets this look on her face, like she's in pain, or that I'm going to slap her for interrupting me. Since I have no idea of what she went threw, I can only imagine.

"I-we would like you to come back to Mount, Justice with us, we will keep you safe. I promise."

She looks like she's having an internal battle with herself but then says something that I wasn't expecting, "I trusted someone once, and the left me to die in the cold of winter, and they came back after over two months, and hurt me. They said I wasn't good enough, they said that I could do better, then made me hurt, again, and again, and again, and again. Will you do that to me too?" she asks a look of fear and hurt in her eyes. My blood boils at the people who would hurt her in such a way.

"No, we would never do that to you. Promise." I say, hoping that she will take my word for it.

She looks at me with so much hope in her eyes, that I just wanted to hold her and tell her that everything would be all right.

She agrees to come back to the Mountain with us, only if she could sit beside me in the Bio-Ship, which I happily comply. But makes Kid Flash very, _very_, angry with me. But it's worth it if it makes Artemis feel safe. Or some-what close to it.


	5. Chapter 5

When All Else Fails

(I do not own Young Justice)

**Chapter Four; Promise **

(_'Mind-Link.' Thoughts._) (And Dick already had a small growth-spurt, so he's tall and muscular.)

**Dick's P.O.V**

When we arrived to the Cave, Artemis was asleep on my shoulder. As we landed in the hanger, none of the Team gets up out of their seats, expect for Wally, who as been by my side since Artemis was asleep, slowly moving the hair out of her face, in a brotherlymanor. When she started to stir, the whole Team froze, afraid to wake her with the slightest movement. She just nestled her head farther into my shoulder. This doesn't make Wally happy. M'gann if the first to speak, she doesn't risk waking Artemis, so she speaks mentally.

_'What are we going to do?" _ She asks.

_'We could bring her to the Med-Bay, she looks like she has a few minor injuries; then we could put her in a spare room.' _Says Kaldur.

I want to say no, that she could sleep in my room while I wait for her to wake, but Wally beats me to it. _'No I don't want Artemis sleeping alone, she needs to have someone watch over her,' _He says/thinks while looking at Artemis' sleeping form. _'I already lost her once, I won't do it again.' _Softness creeping in to his voice.

_'She can stay in my room, I have the most medical training, I can patch her up too.' _ I say/think before I can stop myself.

Wally starts to object, but before he can go full on brother-mode, Kaldur steps in saying, that I have the medical training and I have the 'cleanest' room out of everyone, and it would be the logical choice to put Artemis under care, and as an after thought he said; _'Wally, you also look like you need; food and to get a few hours of sleep. You need to have those things before you start training again. Robin is capable of watching, and keeping Artemis safe.' _

Wally grumbled out what sounded like; _'He better be.' _ But I just nodded my head, going along with what Kaldur had said.

Slowly I move myself so that Artemis' head was leaning against my chest, and as to not wake her, slide down to my knees and slowly slide my arms around her. One; under her knees, the other; her upper back. So her head will still be on my chest. And pick her up, bridal style, and carry her to the Med-Bay.

The rest of the Team slowly starts to go into their rooms for the night; Wally lingers for a moment, before going to his room.

I bandage her cuts, and check if there anything broken, there's not. So I carry her back to my room after giving her sleeping pills, because its going to take me a while to figure out how to explain this to her.

It takes about an hour for her to wake up, and for me to think of a way to tell her about what happened. So far, I've got nothing.

When she opens her eyes, hers instantly connect with my masked ones. I haven't gotten a good look at her eyes get because before I was too focused on getting her looked after, but now that I can see them close up, _wow _ is all I can think, her eyes are like a silver gray, with little flecks of lighter gray.

I open my mouth to say something to explain about what's going on, but she beat me to it.

"You're Dick Grayson, ward of Bruce Wayne, who is also the Batman." Her eyes never leaving mine.

To say that her words caught me by surprise, would be an understatement, I was not expecting that in a million years at least. All the words that I was going to say left my mouth.

I stared at her dumbly while her face had a knowing smirk, "I know more than you supers think." She says.

I continue to look at her with a grin also growing on my face. It's been so long since I could act like Dick Grayson and not like of Robin. I take off my mask, since there's really no point in it anymore. Sure, Bruce will be pissed but I could care less right now.

"So, what else do you know?" I asked her, trying to act casual.

"I know that; Aqualad is Kaldur'ahm, Superboy is Conner Kent, Miss Martian's real name is M'gann M'orzz and her human name is Megan Morse. Wally West is Kid Flash. I know that because before I fled from the Shadows, I hacked the motion sensors, to be able to get out without diction and I also came across your files, and here we are." She replied, that smirk never leaving her lips.

"Well played." I say, trying not to notice how perfect her fetchers seem to be. She didn't say anything about Wally being her brother, so either she didn't have time to read over his file entirely, or the Shadows didn't even brother to put it on his file.

She nods in response, but says nothing.

Her eyes roomed around my room, probably trying to think about the fastest way to escape. As if I could read her mind she made a lunge for the door that was blocked by me.

In our rush to get her to the mountain we forgot to check her for weapons. This happened to be a very bad decision on our part, because since I stood in her way to get to the door, she pulled out a hunting knife that I didn't see her slip out of her pants pocket. She tackled me to the floor effectively pinning me in place. She could have killed me on the spot, but I could see in her eyes that she didn't want to do this; she just wanted to find her way. She doesn't move from her position on top of me, just stares into my eyes, her gray ones pouring into mine.

"I promise." I say, just like I said in the woods, I promised that I wouldn't let anything happen to her, I intend to keep that promise.

Something flickers in her eyes and she loosens her grip on my arms and slowly gets off of me.

"Sorry." She mutters and backs away from me.

"I promised you that I would let nothing bad happen to you, I wont break that promise." I say, I take the same amount of steps toward her as she takes away, until the point where our noses almost touch.

Her warm breath blowing in my face, her lips slightly parted, eyes slightly closed. My eyes lock on hers, and I can tell that she feels that same way that I do.

_Promise. I won't ever let you go._

I lean my head to hers, she does the same.

When our lips meet, the butterflies in my stomach fly away, and it's only me and her.

Our kiss doesn't last long, but it's long enough that we can both tell it a promise to the other to never let each other go.


End file.
